


Beauty Of Uncertainty

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010), Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-15
Updated: 2010-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Harkness," Yusuf began in a mildly insulted tone, "I'm a <i>chemist.</i> Making things work is what I do, and I'm also a tinkerer at heart. After the first batch of pills, it was easy enough to see how I could improve it. It's not as if this is the first time I've done this."</p><p>(Set during and after "Inception" and just after Season 2 of Torchwood.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty Of Uncertainty

**Author's Note:**

> For the inception_kink meme prompt in round 6: [Torchwood's downgraded in size since the Cyberman and Dalek invasion, and its chemistry department is nothing like it used to be. After weighing the pros and cons and making note of how their use of Retcon has skyrocketed, Jack decides to contact the most lauded chemists of the black market to help sustain their Retcon supply. And, as it so happens, Yusuf's slightly altered version is much more customizable/precise than the competition's—and he becomes their primary source of the drug.](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/9327.html?thread=16684143#t16684143)

"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Jack," Ianto intoned.

"Just help me up," Jack grumbled, coughing. He shoved the remnants of the desk off of him and surveyed the damage from the explosion. "Dammit. I think I ruined the entire batch."

"We need a proper chemist to do this," Ianto said, disappointment coloring his tone. "I know you don't want to release the formula, but this has gone far enough."

"It's not as if we could hire just any chemist off the street."

Ianto suppressed the need to sigh, but only just. "We're bloody Torchwood, aren't we? I'm sure you can find someone."

It took Jack a few weeks to track down references to particularly skilled chemists. It wasn't as if he could just flat out ask someone if they were willing to make black market drugs, and the Crown definitely frowned upon illegal activities. But what the Queen didn't know certainly wouldn't hurt her. There were a few that seemed talented enough to be worth the effort, especially one named Yusuf. He seemed eager enough to try to replicate the formula, without being nosy enough to ask what it was for or why it needed to be made. If anything, Jack noted that Yusuf's batches of retcon worked even better than his own.

Jack leaned back in his office a few months later and put his feet up on his desk. He dialed a number he now knew by heart, and it was picked up on the second ring. "Yeah?"

"Yusuf! It's Jack Harkness. How are you doing, my friend?" Jack asked, putting on his most jovial tone.

Yusuf seemed wary. "All right, I suppose. Why?"

"Well, that compound you've made for me is fantastic. It seems to work better than usual."

"Ah." Yusuf let out a breath. "I might have found a better way of making it, Captain Harkness."

"Yusuf, Yusuf, Yusuf. I told you, call me Jack. None of this Captain business for you." Jack shifted position on his desk so that his feet were on the floor again. "And what's this about adjusting how you make it?"

"Harkness," Yusuf began in a mildly insulted tone, "I'm a _chemist._ Making things work is what I do, and I'm also a tinkerer at heart. After the first batch of pills, it was easy enough to see how I could improve it. It's not as if this is the first time I've done this."

Jack laughed. He could hear how rattled Yusuf was by the implication that the retcon wasn't any good, which wasn't his intention at all. And if Yusuf liked to tinker with pills, so much the better. Jack didn't like having to make all the retcon anyway. "Listen, when could I get the next batch of pills? I've run through most of my supply already."

"Are you _sure_ you're not just dealing this?" Yusuf asked suspiciously. "It's definitely a psychoactive compound."

"Of course it is, but it's one that is definitely on a need to know basis, and all you need to know is how to make it. When are you sending the next shipment?"

Jack could hear rapid movements on the other side of the line. He liked to think that someone was frantically trying to make him happy. Ianto knew how to manage him and Gwen sometimes just blew him off. He didn't have the heart to take either to task. The empty workstations in the Hub echoed, and he didn't need guilt on top of grief. Things were active enough without that complicating matters. He was going to have to find himself a new medic and tech specialist soon.

"It's going into the post now."

"Good man!" Jack chortled. "I should track you down and meet you in person."

"Not necessary. I have quite a lot of business to take care of."

"Spoil sport," Jack teased. "Well, good doing business with you Yusuf." He smiled and left his office. "Gwen!" he called, his voice ringing out throughout the Hub. "Let's go weevil hunting!"

***

"Jack," Gwen began, her voice sliding into a slight whine. Her eyes didn't leave the tired Welshman in front of her. He was drunk but decidedly not falling asleep despite the extra retcon she had slipped him. "This should have worked by now."

"It should have worked three pills ago," he said with a frown.

"Are you a dream?" their drunk Welshman slurred, peering at them. "My dreams aren't normally so flash."

With a sigh, Jack reached out and slung an arm around him. "What do you think about aliens?"

Their drunk laughed and Gwen looked around the busy bar. No one was paying them any mind. "Blimey, now I know I'm dreaming." He lurched from Jack's grip and staggered to the bathroom at the back of the bar, laughing all the way and striking the door on his way through it.

"Well, whatever credibility he had is gone," Jack said with a shrug. "Good enough for today."

"I thought your chemist was a good one," Gwen hissed as they headed out of the bar.

"He is," Jack insisted. "I don't know what happened this time."

Gwen made a huffing noise and opened the door to the SUV. "Jack, I'd hate to say it, but you have to stop picking people just because you think they're gorgeous."

"I've never even met Yusuf!" Jack protested, though he didn't immediately deny that being good looking was a marketable skill he looked for.

She laughed as he started up the SUV to head back to the Hub. "But I'm sure you have pictures of him by now, and whatever you can find out about him."

"I'm not stupid, Gwen. Of course I do."

"He's gorgeous, isn't he?" she teased.

"Not as much as Rhys," Jack returned easily.

"Good answer," she laughed, shaking her head. "Perhaps it's time to meet our chemist and see what went wrong. This stuff makes them think they're dreaming, but we still need retcon."

"I'll talk to Yusuf," Jack promised, heading toward the Plass.

But Yusuf wasn't picking up his phone, and no one seemed to know where he was. Jack had gotten his name from a tradesman in Kenya, who thought he heard that Yusuf was involved in a big job based out of Paris. "But you know, people talk. Not all is true, Harkness. I've never met this Cobb fellow, though I've heard the name before. Cobol definitely would want to speak with him, if you find him."

"Thanks, Georges," Jack said wryly. "I'll be seeing you."

"Undoubtedly. I will eventually need repair to the weapons you have sold me."

Jack sat back and thought for a moment. Who did he know in Paris in this part of the timeline? When he remembered, he leapt to his feet and headed into the Hub. "Ianto! Fancy a trip on the Chunnel?"

***

The warehouse was empty, though it showed signs of being recently vacated. Ianto took in the chairs arranged in a semicircle, the drafting desk and the rolls of paper with sketches of buildings. "So your friend the chemist has a friend who's an architect?" He looked up from the drafting table with an amused expression. "Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you have so many multitalented friends."

Jack flashed him a grin. "Of course I do. They're the ones that are the most interesting to talk to." There was something about the arrangement that was vaguely familiar, though his memory of early twenty-first century illegal culture was fuzzy after all this time. He would have to wing it and take the slow path on this, too.

Ianto wandered through the rest of the warehouse and found what had to be Yusuf's lab. "Well, now. Your chemist friend definitely was here." He held up a vial of a clear liquid that had a faint yellow tint. "What do you suppose this is?"

Jack took the vial and put a drop on his tongue. It was bitter, and tasted almost like the recent retcon batch smelled. "I think this is the liquid form of whatever pills we were given."

"So he messed up the orders and switched drugs?"

"Seems so. I've caught two other slip ups since we started, but those were easily corrected." Jack looked around the rest of the lab, at the distillation equipment. "They're coming back, wherever they are now. This is set up to do another batch of whatever this is."

Ianto was going through Yusuf's notebooks, looking for any notes on what he might have been making. There were various chemical structures, vague directions to adjust the distillation process and other notes to self. He didn't understand the part where Yusuf had scribbled _Keeps the kick active!_ on one page of his notebook, but it was underlined twice and had to be important somehow. "It's perhaps a sedative. The comments here seem to imply that."

Jack leaned over Ianto's shoulder to look at the notes. "Really deep sedation, I'm guessing. Why would they have to do that?"

Ianto lofted an eyebrow after committing the notes to memory. "Well, we'll have to find them to ask them, won't we?"

"There's five of them, it looks like," Jack said with a nod. "Five chairs, five in their team."

There was a speculative gleam in Ianto's eye. "You're thinking of hiring them."

"Depends on what they do for a living," he answered with a grin. "A full time chemist might be nice, but I can't imagine what we'd need an architect for. But Georges seemed to think that the guy that hired Yusuf might be in a little danger. Torchwood might be able to help."

"Jack," Ianto warned, shaking his head. "We're not that desperate."

Jack thought of the weevil that had nearly taken out Ianto's throat the week before. His lips pressed tightly together. "Yes, we are. We'll need to monitor this place. They're coming back from wherever they are, and I need to find them."

***

It was nearly three weeks later that Jack's man in Paris sent him a text regarding the warehouse. Yusuf had definitely come back, as well as a well dressed young man and a young woman with brightly colored clothes. Jack's man in Paris had even gone so far as to send him photos he had taken, and identified the other two as Arthur and Ariadne. They had apparently just flown back from LA, and a fourth named Eames that they talked about had gone to Mombassa. Jack's informant hadn't been entirely sure that Eames would return to work with the other three, and also didn't seem to be sure how long they were going to remain in the warehouse.

Jack didn't wait for Ianto or Gwen. Some things he could take care of on his own. Besides, his vortex manipulator would only easily transport one person. If he tried to bring another with him, the weight adjustments got sticky and he could translocate them somewhere messy. He could make it up to them later.

He was in the stairwell of the warehouse moments later, and he could hear voices up above him. "We don't need a forger on this one," came a voice. It was male and unfamiliar, so it had to be Arthur. "Eames has enough to take care of anyway. You watch over us, we go in, get the documents and get out before time runs out."

"I'm pretty sure I have the dimensions of the office building just right," Ariadne said. There was the sound of a pencil tapping against something. "Just in case, this door will swing open and there's a maze tucked behind it. There are three different exit points, just in case the projections get to be too difficult."

Jack could hear rustling and the sound of Yusuf making an appreciative sound. "That looks like the snow fortress layer," he said.

Ariadne laughed, and Jack smiled at the sound of it. "Well, we didn't really get a chance to use the maze in there properly and had to use the air vent. And for being on short notice, it was better to go with something Arthur's already memorized."

Jack stood at the top of the stairs and saw the three of them standing over sketches on the drafting board. Ariadne had the pencils in hand, and was pointing out parts of the maze on a separate drawing for Arthur and Yusuf. None of the three noticed him standing there. He cleared his throat, and Ariadne was so startled she dropped her pencil and banged her knee on the underside of the drafting table. She would be the newest one to this particular line of work, then. Arthur turned around slowly, face impassive and hands steady. Jack wondered if he had a gun stashed nearby, as he certainly wasn't wearing one tucked into his dress pants. Yusuf was in a more relaxed outfit, and scowled once he recognized Jack. Apparently Jack was not the only one to research who he was doing business with.

"What do you want, Harkness?" Yusuf asked. "How did you get in here, anyway?"

Smiling widely, Jack merely shrugged. "Trade secret. The last shipment was off, by the way."

"What do you mean, off?"

"I mean, people kept thinking they were sleeping or dreaming," Jack replied, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. Arther looked suspicious at the comment and Ariadne looked confused. "It wasn't exactly what I've asked for. I wasn't the one that accepted the post, so I didn't catch the error like I did the other ones."

Yusuf had the grace to look chagrined. "I set the wrong stuff to decant, then. I was wondering why Georges kept complaining that his guys forgot what they were supposed to do."

Jack laughed. "Sounds like Georges on a good day. How could you tell?"

"More curse words," Yusuf said with a shrug.

"Yusuf, who is this?" Arthur asked before Jack could say anything else.

Jack strode forward as Yusuf gestured in his general direction. "Captain Jack Harkness. Met him through a guy I know. I make chemicals for him."

"Captain, hm?" Arthur asked, accepting Jack's hand to shake. "What of?"

"Royal Air Force," Jack replied, his smile implying there was a secret there that Arthur could never guess. "But lately, I have a team that works out of Cardiff. This is when it all changes, and we're determined to be ready."

"When what changes?" Ariadne asked, curious.

"All of history. There have been... events, shall we say. The media has done a good job of glossing over the details. My job is to make sure that they stay glossed over."

"Why do you need Yusuf?"

"Best chemist I've ever met," Jack said. "What kind of work is it that you do?" He gave Arthur his best persuasive grin, but Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, not sold in the slightest. "Perhaps we could help each other. I'm a bit short staffed at the moment."

"Not my problem," Arthur replied stiffly. "We have work of our own to do."

"Sounds like a heist of some kind."

He had looked into Cobol after Georges' comment, though he couldn't find any reference to Cobb in any of their databases. It made him wish Tosh was still alive; the woman could make any computer network dance to her tune. He was good, but he wasn't nearly as good as Tosh.

"What we discuss is none of your concern," Arthur replied, voice cold. "If you have business with Yusuf, I suggest that you talk to him about it at another time."

Jack gave the three of them a slow smile and reached for his vortex manipulator. He was going with his gut on this one, and that had certainly served him well with his current team. "Very well, then. I'll give you a call tomorrow, Yusuf."

When he dematerialized from the warehouse, all three of its remaining occupants reached for their totems. It was definitely real.

Yusuf dialed the number he had on record for Jack. "How did you do that?" Yusuf asked as soon as Jack picked up.

Jack laughed. "Oh, but that would be telling. And you seem so busy at the moment."

"Bastard," Yusuf said without heat. There were muted voices behind him that Jack couldn't hear through the phone. "Look. We _may_ be interested in talking about that thing you just did. That disappearing act might come in handy."

"Depends on what it is you do," Jack said slowly.

Yusuf clearly hesitated, and there was the muted sound of Arthur and Ariadne behind him. "We work inside of dreams, Captain Harkness. It's certainly not an ordinary profession."

Jack sat down behind his desk, ignoring the stacks of tagged papers that Ianto had placed there, clearly intending to have him sign them. It nagged at the back of his mind, something he had seen before in his training. "Dream hunters? That's what you do?"

"Well... Not quite hunters," Yusuf hedged. "But I suppose it depends on the job. I just make the somnacin most of the time. I don't usually go into the dreams."

Somnacin. Suddenly it clicked, and Jack smiled widely.

"Great. My associate and I will meet you three for lunch tomorrow. My treat. I'm sure we'll be able to work out an arrangement helps all of us."

***

Ariadne arrived first, with Arthur arriving soon after. Yusuf was late, but he had brought a supply of retcon, so Jack forgave him. Ianto was there ostensibly to take notes, though he was carefully observing everyone. He had also completed the extensive background checks that he was able to make; Ariadne's was easiest, with Arthur and Yusuf disappearing off the face of the earth several years ago. Recreating their actions was terribly difficult.

"How do you choose which job you take?" Jack asked, tucking away the package of retcon. "I don't imagine dosing someone with somnacin is easy."

They all exchanged glances, not sure where to start first. "Well, the dose is something that I calculate," Yusuf said finally, breaking the ice. "Once all the information is obtained of course."

"And there's mazes," Ariadne piped up. "I'm the one that builds them. And the entire dreamscape, really." She smiled shyly when all heads swiveled toward her. "Come on. This is my second job. It's still really cool, okay?"

Jack grinned. "Hey, if a job isn't fun, it's not worth doing. That's my motto."

"Oh, is that what it is?" Ianto asked in arch tones. Ariadne snickered, then covered it with a cough and a sip of her drink.

From there, it was easy enough to talk about dream sharing and dosing somnacin. Jack and Ianto discussed the Rift in Cardiff and monitoring what came in and out of it. Jack talked about retcon, and why they had Yusuf make it. Almost despite himself, Arthur had unwound enough to contribute to the conversation. He spun a potential cover story on the fly that had Ianto's eyebrows crawling toward his hairline. "That would go over well," Ianto mused.

Arthur shrugged. "People are generally easy to understand. It's individuals that are difficult."

Jack smirked, taking in how close he and Ariadne sat next to each other yet didn't really look at each other. Ah, the first blush of romance. It was endearing and cute. Jack just liked skipping to the grand finale and then working to top that. "Generally very true." He glanced at the three of them. "Assuming that the three of you are free, would you be willing to do some freelance work for Torchwood?"

"Somehow I think our average life expectancy is greater with the dream work," Arthur commented dryly.

Ianto shrugged. "Depends on the life you plan to lead."

"Long enough to enjoy spending all of my ill gotten gains," Arthur replied, leaning back in his chair slightly. He shrugged at Jack and Ianto. "I haven't heard enough to tempt me."

"You wouldn't necessarily have to do field work, you understand," Jack answered with an easy shrug. "But if there's something that might be up your alley... Not field work as we do it, but having a team that's skilled at dream work can come in handy."

"But you hunt things in the sewers," Ariadne exclaimed. "That's not exactly something you can fix with a dream."

"No, but it's not the only thing we do." Jack looked at each of them. "This is when it all changes. It's more than just the Rift. Alien worlds, threats this planet can't handle... Torchwood is supposed to protect people from whatever threat there is. And sometimes, honestly, the threat is within our own borders." There was a dark look in his eyes, the weight of terrible knowledge hanging there unspoken. "If I can't convince you to hire on full time, I'd at least like to keep you on as consultants. And maybe you'd know someone that would work well with us."

"Well, it kind of ruins the fact that you're a secret organization, doesn't it? If you talk to all sorts of people about it?" Ariadne asked, looking at Jack and Ianto.

Jack smiled. "That's what the retcon is for." He stood and Ianto did as well. "Just keep it mind, hm?"

"You're not going to dose us?" Arthur asked.

"And lose my best chemist?" Jack snorted. "Besides, who could you tell? It's not as if anyone would believe you."

"Why would we work for you, though?" Ariadne asked, frowning at Jack and Ianto. "It makes sense for Yusuf to, but the rest of us don't have to."

"Well, _you_ probably wouldn't have to," Jack corrected. "At least until you get caught. Your compatriots have a bit of a record in various countries. Most of them don't have extradition treaties with each other." He grinned at Arthur's surprised expression. "Don't doubt how useful it could be to have a legitimate government backing you for a change. Or an organization that has dozens of little hidey holes all over the world that aren't being used."

Arthur nodded slowly. "That would definitely be a benefit."

"Brilliant," Ianto said with a brisk nod. He handed each of them cards. "This would be contact information. Someone at the Hub would be able to help you no matter what time of day it is."

"Efficient," Ariadne murmured, running her fingers over the embossed card.

"We do try," Ianto said with a slight twist to his lips. "Pleasure to meet all of you."

Arthur tucked the card into his wallet after Jack and Ianto left. "We still have a job to do," he reminded Ariadne and Yusuf.

"You two have _a_ job," Yusuf said with a rueful smile. "I still need to get another batch of retcon to start simmering. It takes almost three weeks to produce a thousand pills."

Arthur gave him a nod. "Then in that case, we'd all better get back to work."

The End.


End file.
